Palo Alto fire Chief Eric Nickel had heard tales of doctors, nurses and paramedics coming to the aid of fellow stricken airline passengers. He just never figured he'd find himself in the middle of such a situation.

Nickel was returning from an International Association of Fire Chiefs conference in Chicago on Aug. 18 when a flight attendant uttered the familiar words: "Is there a nurse or doctor on the plane?"

"Well, I'm neither, so I just sit there," Nickel told The Daily News.

But a few moments later, the flight attendant expanded her call for help to "anyone with medical training."

Nickel, who spent 13 years as a paramedic, stepped forward.

"Great, great," the flight attendant told him. "Come this way."

The fire chief was escorted to the front of the plane, first class, where a woman in her 50s was waiting.

"So, I started assessing this woman," Nickel said, "and she was in fact having a medical emergency."

Nickel was reluctant to disclose the woman's ailment because of privacy rules but he said it was abdominal in nature.

"I didn't believe it was life-threatening but she was uncomfortable and clearly had no business being at 35,000 feet," he said.

The medical equipment on the plane, meanwhile, was limited and geared toward helping passengers suffering from a cardiac arrest or diabetic emergency, Nickel said.

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Nickel asked the pilot whether it would be possible to speak with a doctor over the plane's radio. It wasn't. And the flight had reached a critical point where it could divert to Salt Lake City and be on the ground in 25 minutes or continue on to San Francisco International Airport still some two hours away.

The pilot wanted Nickel to make the call. The fire chief told him to land the plane in Salt Lake City.

Firefighters and paramedics met the plane when it touched down. Before they wheeled the suffering woman away, her husband exchanged business cards with Nickel. The husband later emailed Nickel to tell him that his wife ended up being hospitalized for two days.

Back on the plane, Nickel had braced himself for the wrath of passengers upset by the delay.

"They were actually clapping for me," said Nickel, who still sounded surprised by the reaction weeks later. "That was awkward for me. I'm not totally comfortable with that type of recognition."

The recognition continued Monday night when City Manager James Keene disclosed Nickel's heroics at the city council meeting.

"Chief Nickel, we're all grateful you were on board and freely offered your medical expertise when it was needed most. Without a doubt, you greatly improved a difficult situation," said Keene, reading from a letter American Airlines sent to Nickel following the episode.

The letter included a $250 flight voucher, which Nickel handed over to the city attorney's office. He said he figured the voucher belonged to the city because it had footed the bill for his trip.

Nickel said the experience reminded him of his paramedic training in the late 1980s. He did his rounds at a hospital near LAX and often saw "catastrophic medical emergencies" that had occurred on flights over the Pacific Ocean, four or five hours away from the nearest facility.

"A firefighter is never really off duty," Nickel said about finding himself on a plane coming to the aid of a fellow passenger. "If someone needs our help, we'll jump in and help out."